Honesty Quotes
By count, Shakespeare is far ahead of the next writers, Solomon, George Herbert and Mark Twain. The sourced lines lean toward sincerity, not honesty as such, and they are not what a poster would use. Wilde, in The Critic as Artist (1891), says a little sincerity is a dangerous thing and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal. Martin Luther King Jr., in Strength to Love (1963), says nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. Shaw’s remark that there is no love sincerer than the love of food appears here and under Food.
The only flagged entry is “It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver,” credited to Machiavelli and marked misattributed.
Most quoted on honesty:
But when the fox hath once got in his nose,
He'll soon find means to make the body follow.
Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile.
Friends, if we be honest with ourselves, we shall be honest with each other.
To lapse in fulness
Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood
Is worse in kings than beggars.
Whose tongue soe'er speaks false,
Not truly speaks; who speaks not truly, lies.
An honest blunder in the use of the language is not dishonest... What is honest is not dishonest.